Hong Kong's Joshua Wong enters plea for lesser sentence
Prominent Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong should be considered an active participant in a landmark subversion case involving 47 democrats, his lawyer said on Friday (July 5), but urged a court to hand him a lighter sentence for entering his plea early. - REUTERS
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00:00Prominent Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong entered a mitigation plea for a lighter sentence on
00:06Friday. A van believed to be carrying Wong entered the court building.
00:11The 27-year-old was one of dozens of activists arrested in 2021 for joining an unofficial
00:18primary election to choose candidates for the city's legislature.
00:22Of these, 47 were charged with conspiracy to commit subversion under a national security
00:27law imposed by Beijing. While Beijing says the law is necessary and
00:31has brought security, countries including the US, UK and Australia say they've been
00:36used to curb freedoms in the Asian financial hub.
00:39Wong's lawyer Marco Lee told the court while his client should be considered an active
00:43participant in the conspiracy, he was not involved in organizing or assisting in the
00:47primary election. And in view of Wong's early plea of guilty,
00:51Lee urged a reduction of a third of his sentence. That could range from three to ten years for
00:56active participants in the conspiracy, but life in jail for those deemed principal offenders.
01:02Lee added that Wong hopes to reform himself and part with his past history.
01:06Wong rose to prominence in 2014 when he found himself leading student-led democracy protests
01:12that blocked roads in the heart of Hong Kong for 79 days.
01:16He was among candidates who won in the unofficial primary poll in 2020, but was disqualified
01:21from running in the official election. In the past, he lobbied abroad and publicly
01:25supported measures such as the 2019 US-Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, which
01:31would annually review the city's special economic status and slap sanctions on those who undermine
01:37its autonomy.